I assume LJ won't delete my account for complaining about _other_ social networks?
Google: Whatever happened to "Don't be Evil"?*
There are lots of people who would prefer not to be "accidentally" discovered by abusive ex-husbands, a rapist, hateful school children, harassing neighbors, belligerent parents, etc. There are also people who have celebrity status and operate under a pseudonym in order to maintain some semblance of privacy in their lives. There are plenty of perfectly legitimate, non-sleazy reasons for wanting anonymity while retaining the ability to participate in social networking. In real life, you can move and go somewhere else. On the Internet, you cannot -- precisely because of services like Google -- but you can change your face and your name.
How would you like it if you were suddenly told you had one house, forever, and were never allowed to move no matter what kind of people moved into your neighborhood or broke into your house or vandalized your yard? That is the objection you are hearing from your users. The argument that you can "limit who sees and comments on your posts" is akin to telling us that if we don't like our neighbors, we should shutter our windows, lock our doors and get a guard dog. No one wants their Internet "home" to be like that.
If you force people to use their real names and only their real names -- and that's assuming you have the ability to tell who is and who isn't doing so -- you are trapping them in one location in all of your products, forever. One shot at having a Happy Google Life. That doesn't exactly foster a very good environment for the free exchange of ideas, opinions, and experiences.
If a person has any legitimate reason to not want to use their real name, they will simply not use your product because it is unsafe to use. Or they will use it, either because they have to for business reasons or they want to for social ones, only to find themselves unable to avoid people they don't want finding them. Why would you want that? What good does it do you?
In the end you're going to have to decide whether you are a social networking site, or a peoplefinder site like Facebook.
The idea of Google+ in the public mind was that it was going to be "like Facebook, but not Facebook." I'd say you've killed the main appeal to it, if you continue with this policy.
*It's a rhetorical question, if you didn't catch it.
There are lots of people who would prefer not to be "accidentally" discovered by abusive ex-husbands, a rapist, hateful school children, harassing neighbors, belligerent parents, etc. There are also people who have celebrity status and operate under a pseudonym in order to maintain some semblance of privacy in their lives. There are plenty of perfectly legitimate, non-sleazy reasons for wanting anonymity while retaining the ability to participate in social networking. In real life, you can move and go somewhere else. On the Internet, you cannot -- precisely because of services like Google -- but you can change your face and your name.
How would you like it if you were suddenly told you had one house, forever, and were never allowed to move no matter what kind of people moved into your neighborhood or broke into your house or vandalized your yard? That is the objection you are hearing from your users. The argument that you can "limit who sees and comments on your posts" is akin to telling us that if we don't like our neighbors, we should shutter our windows, lock our doors and get a guard dog. No one wants their Internet "home" to be like that.
If you force people to use their real names and only their real names -- and that's assuming you have the ability to tell who is and who isn't doing so -- you are trapping them in one location in all of your products, forever. One shot at having a Happy Google Life. That doesn't exactly foster a very good environment for the free exchange of ideas, opinions, and experiences.
If a person has any legitimate reason to not want to use their real name, they will simply not use your product because it is unsafe to use. Or they will use it, either because they have to for business reasons or they want to for social ones, only to find themselves unable to avoid people they don't want finding them. Why would you want that? What good does it do you?
In the end you're going to have to decide whether you are a social networking site, or a peoplefinder site like Facebook.
The idea of Google+ in the public mind was that it was going to be "like Facebook, but not Facebook." I'd say you've killed the main appeal to it, if you continue with this policy.
*It's a rhetorical question, if you didn't catch it.